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Betsy Chasse: Breaking the Habit of Being Me

“When we get out of the glass bottle of our ego, and when we escape like squirrels in the cage of our personality and get into the forest again, we shall shiver with cold and fright. But things will happen to us so that we don’t know ourselves. Cool, unlying life will rush in, and passion will make our bodies taut with power. We shall laugh, and institutions will curl up like burnt paper” – D.H. Lawrence, “ESCAPE”

Well hello there blank screen. I’ve been staring at you for over a month. So much going on inside and no way to express it. At least I couldn’t find the words. For the last 2 years I have been in a process of metamorphosis – a Metanoia – if you will. Metanoia means a transformative change of heart. A change of my being. It has been painful and frightening, joyful and exhilarating. Of course that describes most of life, but this process has been different. Different because now I am aware of it. I had a dream that lasted for days. It has taken me a month to put this dream into words, into a cohesive thought. I have been angry at it, laughed at it, cried from it… and just yesterday released it.

I sometimes feel like a fraud, as I go back and read my old blog posts I see that over- confident, “I got it figured out” girl peeking out. Like I actually have anything figured out. Sometimes I do, or at least I feel like I do and I can ride that high for a few days or even a week or so, but then slowly it seeps back into me, like oil spreading across a frying pan. I quickly find all the most inspiring videos and posts I can on Facebook, but they only seem slippery and I am unable to hold onto the feeling of being empowered or inspired. Any “knowing” I had sizzled away from the heat of life, leaving only the story of failure and insecurity.

I get angry with myself, wow how ungrateful am I. Look at my life, look at all I have, my children, my health, so much to be grateful for, and yes, that fills me for a moment, but slips slowly away as I watch it fall into the pit of doubt and fear. I become frozen, unable to move, with each attempt to break free, my feet slick with oil slip farther and farther into the pit. I clutch on to the little gifts, the little signs that tell me not to give up. Like little cracks in the wall for my feet and hands to grasp, but I’m still dangling, hanging on for dear life.

It would be so much easier to blame mercury, or someone else, to wallow in the why me, why is it so hard. To stomp my feet and pout, although, stomping is not an option when you’re dangling above the void, between the present and the past, I cannot see my safety net, not yet anyway- my eyes are still stinging from the tears and the sweat from the tug of war for the right to rule me.

Oddly, I know where I am, frozen as I might be, I’m in a forced time out, my soul and my mind waging a war against each other. I’ve been at this for a while now. Change is not something the ego and the body like. Breaking old patterns is uncomfortable and I hadn’t realized the hold my old stories had on me until now.

Why is it we find comfort in the things that don’t serve us? Why do we insist on holding on to the old patterns and beliefs that keep us locked into a box–how many times must we run in the same circle before we fall, exhausted in surrender. Why is it surrender is so hard to give. Why do we fight change?

I see myself splayed out on a table, the tubes sucking out the cells of my past, the lies I told myself, the old paradigm oozing through the tubes. My body fights, my brain seizes and screams out, as if I let go of my past there will be nothing left of me. But I know I must let it go. My soul whispers “shhhhh, surrender”, and I fight back, “I have, I have”, even though I know deep inside that I really haven’t. Finally, I am exhausted from the battle and the crackling of the fire fades. The flame cools and for a moment there is nothing. My hands cramped and sore from holding on so tightly release, I feel a soft breeze across my face and through the darkness comes a whisper of knowing that all will be as it should be. I feel my feet once again solid on the ground.

I begin to wonder how long this peace will last; I look down at the puddle of old beliefs lying at my feet. Knowing there are more battles ahead, but for now I savor in the victory, I am.

This is the dance we do; we must do until it’s all been drawn out. This is the process of breaking the habit of being me. I wish I could say it gets easier, but the farther down I go, the deeper the beliefs are ingrained into my every cell. The decades of fat and gristle consumed are hardened and the fire must be hot to break them down.

Today as I sat quietly in meditation I surrendered. I accepted that change is not easy, it’s not even hard, it a process and the battle I wage comes mostly from my impatience and my unwillingness to trust myself that I can, I have and I will becaue I am. I will gladly take the heat, knowing that ultimately underneath it all, there is someone wonderful, someone beautiful, someone full of love – me.

I recently had the pleasure of sitting down with Dr. Joe Dispenza- that master of breaking the habit of being you (The title of his book). It’s a long interview in 2 parts- but worth it. He eloquently breaks it down for me, the brain, the body, how we work and how we can truly break the habits and move into a greater, happier life.

You can view the interview here:

About Betsy Chasse

Betsy Chasse is a filmmaker, author, speaker, and mother best known as the co-creator behind the film What the Bleep Do We Know?! Chasse is a featured blogger on IntentBlog.com. Huffington Post and Modern Mom. She has been a featured columnist for multiple magazines and online sites most-recently Select magazine, Common Ground, and Yahoo! Shine. She has written three books, most recently Tipping Sacred Cows. Find out more about her at www.betsychasse.net
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